Nintendo’s E3 Conference Summarized

Nintendo held its E3 press conference at 9:00 AM PST today, and here’s a summary of all the major announcements:

• The conference kicked off with a live orchestra playing Zelda music, which led to discussion of The Legend of Zelda’s 25th anniversary.
• Something Zelda-related will be coming to all three of Nintendo’s systems this year. 3DS gets Ocarina of Time 3D on June 19th and Link’s Awakening DX on the eShop later today. DSi gets Four Swords for free on DSiWare in September. Wii gets Skyward Sword before the end of the year.
• A special gold Wii remote will be available at Skyward Sword’s launch.
• Legend of Zelda symphony concerts will be held in every major region.
• Those among the first to register Ocarina of Time 3D on Club Nintendo will receive the game’s soundtrack CD as a gift.  A CD of orchestral Zelda music from the symphony concerts will be released closer to Skyward Sword.
• A montage of upcoming 3DS games: Mario Kart 3D, Star Fox 64 3D, Super Mario 3D, Kid Icarus: Uprising, and Luigi’s Mansion.
• Mario Kart 3D will be released holiday 2011.
• Star Fox 3D will feature button or tilt control. The camera captures realtime facial expressions during multiplayer matches and displays them by your ship. Launches in September.
• Super Mario 3D is the first full 3D Mario game made from the ground up for a portable system. The Tanooki suit makes a return. It launches before the end of the year.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising features a multiplayer component allowing you to battle against other players 3-on-3. It also features AR card functionality for battling. The game will be out before the end of the year.
• Luigi’s Mansion 2 is an entirely new game for 3DS making use of 3D and featuring multiple mansions.
• 3D game trailers will be unlocked on the eShop soon. Game demos of retail and downloadable games are coming later this year.
• Excitebike and Pokedex 3D are detailed as free downloads on the eShop, available now.
• Project Cafe is now known officially as Wii U.
• Wii U’s controller integrates a 6.2″ touchscreen, microphone, speakers, accelerometer, gyroscope, and camera.
• HD images can be streamed to an HDTV, the controller, or both screens can be utilized at the same time.
• Super Smash Bros. is coming to Wii U and 3DS, with cross-platform play.
• Lego City Stories will be published by Nintendo for Wii U.
• A bunch of games coming to Wii U including Darksiders 2, Batman: Arkham City, Tekken, and Assassin’s Creed.
• Ninja Gaiden 3 is also coming to Wii U, along with other games.
• The games on the show floor are prototypes and not representative of actual Wii U games.